Health Minister – 67.2 per cent adults fully vaccinated against COVID

As the Health Ministry advances efforts to ensure Guyana reaches herd immunity, an estimated 67.2 per cent of the adult population has been fully vaccinated against the devastating COVID-19 virus. According to statistics, this indicates that about 344, 596 Guyanese adults received the full jab, since the roll out of the massive vaccination campaign.

It was revealed that records show too that 444, 950 adults or 86.7 per cent of the adult population have received their first dose. Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony during the COVID-19 update on Thursday, said 35, 373 or 48.5 per cent of Guyanese between the ages 12 to 17 took their first jab, while 25, 876 or 35.5 per cent of the age cohort is fully vaccinated.

Further, a total of 6,325 or 6.2 per cent of children ages five to 11, got the first dose of the covid 19 vaccine and 1,529 doses of the second jab were distributed to the same age cohort.

It was revealed that although the five-to 11-year-old vaccine drive was recently rolled out by government, Minister Anthony reiterated the need for improved partnership with parents. The minister emphasised that the approach will ensure more children are protected.

“…even while we are rolling this out, remember we waited a long time to be able to access these types of vaccines [for children] between five and 11, so now that we have the vaccines, it’s important that we get parents to bring their children to be vaccinated. You don’t want your child to go back to school and be vulnerable to an infection,” Dr. Anthony urged.

The minister stressed that there is a need to advance the 70,000 booster shots which have been administered to date. Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony reiterated that there are different strains of the Omicron virus that is circulating. With omicron there are five various subvariants; BA.1, BA.2, BA.3, BA.4 and BA.5.

The health minister noted that the ministry has discovered that a number of people who might have endured the devastating virus before are being reinfected.

“In January, we would have seen more BA1 and BA2 kind of presentation, and now what we are seeing is a BA5 presentation. What has happened is that even if you were infected with BA1 or BA2 previous, you can get reinfected with BA5. We are seeing people who probably would have had COVID before, whether with omicron, or with some other variant that they are getting reinfected”, he said.

Minister Anthony pointed out that there are cases where senior citizens, persons with comorbidities, as well as those unvaccinated, are the ones currently being hospitalised. The minister said comorbidities referenced, describe someone who bears more than one disease or condition within their body at the same time.

The health minister disclosed that in order for anyone to keep up to date with protection against the fatal virus, they should take a booster shot every six months. “Booster doses are available. Unfortunately, a lot of people who remain vulnerable to Covid who can end up with a severe form of covid, because of the risk factor that they have… many of them have not come back for their booster doses,” Dr. Anthony said2.

The health minister noted that those persons could eventually become hospitalised or in some instances die, if they are reinfected. The minister disclosed that his ministry has administered approximately 405 doses of vaccines within the last 24 hours.

Dr Anthony added that there have been 62 new cases, while 641 active cases are being tracked. No deaths were recorded during the period.